I don’t think there is a conservative out there that doesn’t agree with him on why people come to America. My regular readers will know I am first generation. I grew up almost exclusively around other new immigrants who left small towns in Scandinavia, who were in bad shape after decades of war and the aftermath, in search of a better life. I get it. I don’t know of one of them that came illegally. Not one.

My dad had to report to INS quarterly with pay stubs, he had to have a sponsor that had $15,000 in the bank. This was in the 50’s, just imagine how hard it was to find someone with that kind of money in the bank back then. He waited four years for his visa to be approved. He learned English and taught his children to be very understanding of the fact that growing up in this country was a privilege, not a right. I can’t tell you how rich I would be if I had a dollar for every time I heard “You don’t know how lucky you are to be born in America”.

Yes, Mr. Rubio, your parents worked very hard to give their children choices and options that were not quite available to them. How many laws did they break in order to do it? How many people had to wait that much longer to get their legal visas because of all the people who didn’t follow the rules were able to get a visa that has been unobtainable to them? (A family member of mine, being one). How many citizens salaries suffered because of your parents? Because even the CBO says that will happen for about a decade if this bill ever becomes law. The only ones making money off this will be the government. Great, we keep feeding the beast.

I was willing to walk this road with you Mr. Rubio if it meant we were going to get real reforms on the legal visa system and border security. But since we get neither with this bill………………only 25% of the flow of illegals will be stopped.

So yes Mr. Rubio, your speech was impassioned. But your vote sold out millions upon millions of Americans. I hope your parents are proud of that little fact.

Let’s be clear. Nobody is talking about preventing the legalization. The legalization is going to happen. That means the following will happen: First comes the legalization. Then come the measures to secure the border. And then comes the process of permanent residence

Ok, I am done. I want to see immigration reform. Especially when it comes to visa reform. But until the borders is secured, there is nothing to talk about. Luckily it seems that they can’t get the house on board.

We haven’t had a cohort of people living permanently in US without full rights of citizenship since slavery.

Alex Conant is the media spokesperson for Senator Marco Rubio.

Oh my. I am just shaking my head. I have been somewhat supportive of Rubio’s plan on immigration. I am of the mind that we need to actually solve the problem because it will just continue to get worse unless we do.

But to say something like this. I am in utter disbelief that someone that works for a senator would say something like this. Um, slaves didn’t come here voluntarily and break our laws while doing so.

This is not the way to win over the conservative base that Rubio will need to get this passed. This man really hurt his boss today and hurt the chances of us getting something done that may have a chance of securing our borders.

How is Obama’s unrelenting push to kill Arizona’s immigration bill working out in America’s Southwest?

Not as well as expected, it seems, if the results of the first Denver Post/9News poll of the 2010 election campaign are any indication.

According to that poll, six out of ten Hispanic voters registered in Colorado (62%) would like to see their state enact an immigration law similar to Arizona’s, and only three out of ten (31%) would be opposed to such a law. That pretty much matches the opinions of Arizonan registered voters who identify themselves as White, among whom six out of ten (61%) would like to see a Colorado version of the Arizona law, and three or four in ten (35%) would not.

It’s public opinion like this that motivated Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman to quip, “I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that almost every state in America next January is going to see a bill similar to Arizona’s.”

More and more, it looks like Americans aim to protect their country, not only from “unauthorized Democrats” flooding in illegally from other countries, but from their enablers in the White House and Congress.

There are plenty of events that you might think would make big news but don’t because they contradict utterances made by Barack Obama or one of his high-ranking Obamatons. A case in point is the reported plan by a Mexican drug cartel, the Zeta cartel, to blow up Falcon Dam on the Rio Grande, southwest of San Antonio, Texas, as an act of vengeance against their rival, the Gulf cartel.

The plan came to the attention of U.S. officials when members of the Zeta cartel circulated handbills and drove around “the Mexican side of the river near the dam” with bullhorns to warn the population “to get out of the area.” Some members of the cartel are known to be ex-military members “trained in special forces tactics, including demolition.” If these drug thugs had succeeded in seriously compromising the dam, they would have released 534 billion gallons of water stored behind the dam in Falcon Lake, not only disrupting the Gulf cartel’s smuggling routes from Falcon Lake to the Gulf but also flooding “massive amounts of agricultural land . . . as well as significant parts of a region where about 4 million people live along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Contrast the Zeta cartel’s threat in May of this year with a statement made by Obama during his “immigration reform” speech of June 1:

So the bottom line is this: The southern border is more secure today than at any time in the past 20 years.

The threatened attack on the dam was met with secret actions by the “American police, federal agents and disaster officials” including the “U.S. Border Patrol, the Texas Department of Public Safety and even game wardens,” according to officials. A “stepped-up presence by the Mexican military” may also have played a role.

Said Gene Falcon, director of emergency preparedness for Starr County where Falcon Dam is sited, “It would have been a hell of a disaster. There was plenty of concern.”

Arizonans and other Americans suffer enormously from illegal immigration, but what does that suffering amount to for the president of the United States? It makes a great bargaining chip. When you are in serious pain, you might agree to just about anything to make the pain stop.

On Friday, June 18, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) told an audience at a town hall meeting in North Tempe why President Obama won’t enforce America’s immigration laws. The entire video is worth watching, but the Obama information starts at 3:17.

Here’s what Senator Kyl said:

I met with the president in the Oval Office, just the two of us . . . and we had a discussion about this. . . . Here’s what the president said:

“The problem is,” he said, “if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform.”

In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with comprehensive immigration reform.

Now, I explained, “You and I, Mr. President, have an obligation to secure the border. That’s an obligation. It also has potentially positive benefits. You don’t have to have comprehensive reform to secure the border, but you have to secure the border to get comprehensive reform.” I said, “You’d be surprised. Maybe you don’t think that there would be any more incentive for comprehensive reform. But I’m not so sure that that’s true.” In any event, it doesn’t matter. We’re supposed to secure the border.

But that’s why it isn’t being done. They frankly don’t want to do it. They want to get something in return for doing their duty.

That is, of course, if “they” plan on securing the border at any time.

It’s official, I cannot abide that man. BO is a . . . ugh! Words fail me. We knew this is how he thinks, but the confirmation of it is still unsettling.

As to securing the borders, that’s the job of the federal government, they all swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. To me, this is nothing less than failing to live up to the office he took: I won’t protect or defend this nation . . . unless you do what I want? No, no, no. That is not how it works. The Constitution is clear about this, and people are being killed, terrorists are coming in from Mexico, and this petty, bully Chicago crap has got to stop. He’s crossing lines here, and it’s just not acceptable. Hell, BO is just not acceptable.

Chicago aldermen are in a quandary, the city’s red-light cameras come from Arizona. While they’re not popular with the public, the money-hungry, cash-strapped city needs the revenue–and they have a contract until 2013.

Usually politics trumps common sense but high-taxed voters are mad this year, even in all blue Chicago.

Oh, but they’re on high moral ground, just like San Francisco. I’m *sure* they’ll not give in to any financial consideration. Nah,that wouldn’t happen. Only racists are greedy and driven by the almighty dollar. (hmph)

The Corner performs a real public service by faithfully posting Krauthammer highlights from Fox News All-Stars. From last night:

The view that this announcement by the White House of half a billion [dollars] and 1,200 National Guard is a serious effort — a serious way to show seriousness about this — is total nonsense. This is a PR stunt. It’s Lucy and the football all over again. [. . .]

I mean, this is an obvious issue. The Democrats are unbelievably stubborn on this. If you want to really. . . use stimulus money, you don’t send a thousand Guard. You send 20,000 unemployed and you build a fence quickly. And once that’s done, let’s have an argument and a debate about legalization and all the other steps. [. . .]

Senator [Pat] Roberts also added, after saying the president was thin-skinned, that he should take a Valium before he meets with Republicans. I’d be happy to write the prescription . . .

…Chicago is a sanctuary city, Illinois de facto. We haven’t seen too much Arizona-bashing except for the liberal Highland Park school district, perhaps because people remember the subtext of the trial of our last impeached governor. A big family died in a fireball on the highway with only the parents able to free themselves. The cause–a driver with a license bought illegally. He couldn’t understand English when other truckers were trying to tell him he had a heavy part dangling dangerously from the rear of his truck.

This is so far beyond the pale. How on earth do these people sit there while a foreign leader tells them that our police, our state legislators, and our people are racists? I do not understand how anyone can sit there, let alone jump to their feet in enthusiastic applause. What happened to dignity, respect, patriotism? The only enemies of the progressives in our government (i.e. our government) are the people of this country. That’s a huge problem.

And now they want to revoke terrorists’ citizenship? Who do you think this administration thinks is a terrorist? Who do they all say are the “real” threats to this country, its security, to “democracy”? We’re on a dangerous dangerous path, and I am deeply concerned by these America- hating people who side with foreign leaders over the people of their own country.

You can understand why Obama’s administration doesn’t want the American people to think they actually read our laws. We might get the mistaken notion that the administration is considering upholding those laws.

2)The NY Times has been barred, by the White House, from speaking to Elena Kagan’s brother.

The New York Times received permission on Tuesday from Hunter College High School in Manhattan, Elena Kagan’s alma mater, to observe a constitutional law class there taught by her brother Irving. We thought it would be intriguing to watch the give and take between Mr. Kagan, who is known as a passionate and interactive educator, and his students on his first day back after witnessing his sister’s nomination in Washington.

Mr. Kagan, who is also a Hunter alumnus, did not have a problem with the idea, a school spokeswoman said, but she added that all media requests now had to be given final approval by the White House. The times were tentatively set: there was either an 8:52 a.m. class or a 9:36 a.m. class on Wednesday. “I thought it would have been great,” said the spokeswoman, Meredith Halpern.

But when presented with the idea, the White House balked.

Joshua Earnest, a White House spokesman, said that the administration was “uncomfortable with the idea at this time.” [. . .]

A formal proposal has been submitted to the White House, which the administration requested. They asked that it outline the intent and goal of the article in significant detail.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if Kagan’s brother, or cousin, also suddenly mum, chose to go over the head of their White House minders and talk to the press anyway?

The Healthy Choices Act–introduced by Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee–would establish and fund a wide range of programs and regulations aimed at reducing obesity rates by such means as putting nutritional labels on the front of food products, subsidizing businesses that provide fresh fruits and vegetables, and collecting BMI measurements of patients and counseling those that are overweight or obese.

Choice has become the dirtiest of dirty words. But Big Brother is only trying to make our lives easier:

At a press conference last week to announce the introduction of the bill, Kind emphasized it would help “busy American families.”

“Making the healthy choice the easy choice for our families is essential to ensuring our quality of life,” Kind said. “I am pleased to work on legislation that helps provide the opportunities that meet the needs of busy American families.”

Let’s leave aside the many methodological problems with BMI as a measurement of obesity (such as the fact that muscular, athletic males are almost always classed as obese). The bill requires federal taxpayers to lay out yet more money to create yet another intrusive apparatus for tracking and storing information that, for example, your 16 year old daughter might regard as rather personal . . . .

It’s interesting. Most everyone is on the side of the girls. So many on the left are so tone deaf–they never think things through. Title 9 girls vs. a remote possibility of “safety” concerns–it’s more dangerous on the south side of chicago.

Flag burning, that cherished right of the Left, is what you might expect in a story that pairs “incendiary” with “flag.” But in this case, no matches are needed. The flag image itself is viewed as a sort of desecration.

Four students in the San Francisco area were sent home from school yesterday for wearing American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo. The administration said the T-shirts were “incendiary.”

Perhaps the patriotic clothing would have triggered violence among the high schoolers. But this kind of preemptive strike against self-expression is diametrically opposed to core American values. (Or are we all Canadians now?) It’s especially disturbing when you look at the clothing that was banned by the kids’ keepers.

We’ve entered a pretty strange world when the image of an American flag is considered “incendiary” — in America.

Oh, wait a minute — this happened in the San Francisco area. Never mind.

New title: Four patriotic high school boys discovered in Bay area; baffled administrators resign in disgrace.

Student Anthony Caravalho was also sent home for not turning his shirt inside out. “They said we had to wear our t-shirts inside out and then we could go back to class and we said no,” said Caravalho. “It would be disrespectful to the flag by hiding it.”

Having worked in a public school, I have to say this is just mind boggling. After Columbine our principal had trouble with kids wearing trench coats and could do nothing about it. Schools, unfortunately react to really bad press and lawsuits now. This qualifies as bad press, keep turning up the volume until the school has to trip over themselves to defend themselves.

Jonah Goldberg makes a modest proposal (I’ll let you read it), and this good point:

Forget being a throwback to the Confederacy; the sanctimony choir cries out that Arizona has rematerialized as 1940 Berlin, albeit with a drier climate. Ironic, since the requirement that legal immigrants carry their “papers” at all times was signed into law by FDR that very year.

One of the principles that keeps America unique is the rule of law–no man is above or below it. That means you have to enforce the law–or you encourage a nation of scofflaws. Laws shouldn’t be onerous or they face repeal.

It really bothers me when one is called a racist for applauding any attempt to make sure that people are here legally. When I visit a foreign country, I carry a passport, get a visa, and try behave as a good guest to the extent that I can figure out how not to offend the other culture. Although I am very sympathetic to genuine political refugees, I posted an ironic excerpt from Mexico’s ferocious regulations on immigrants to their own country http://artemisretriever.blogspot.com/2010/04/inconsistency-vis-vis-illegals.html

Because San Francisco’s political leaders view federal immigration law as “discriminatory,” they have decided to punish the state of Arizona for its failure to succeed in providing “sanctuary” to the millions crossing its borders from Mexico, including warring drug thugs who have taken over entire neighborhoods and turned Arizona into a world kidnapping capital.

Fox News is reporting that Mayor Gavin Newsom has already banned city workers from all non-essential travel to Arizona, and San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors are planning to boycott Arizona economically. Others want to cancel collegiate and professional sports events, like the Superbowl.

One question remains: Will San Francisco be willing to pay the price for its self-appointed claim on moral superiority? In one case, according to city spokeman, Tony Winnicker, if San Francisco cancels its business with an Arizona company that helps them run the city’s Jobs Now program, “we could be looking at a situation where 2,500 San Franciscans would lose their jobs.”

What? San Francisco workers could lose jobs in their attempt to kill the jobs of people in Arizona?

And what would happen if Arizona retaliated? As one San Francisco restauranteur confessed:

Would Arizona and other states that are more conservative than San Francisco retaliate, and stop sending conventions to San Francisco? Certainly, in a recession, we don’t want any retaliation.

What’s the matter, San Francisco? You can dish it out, but you just can’t take it?

But if CA decides to go through with it, then perhaps Arizona can express its outrage at California impinging upon Arizona’s right to self-governance by dialing back the taps to the energy and water supplies southern California depends on.

In his spare time, on April 8, President Obama signed an arms-reduction treaty with Russia. He urges swift ratification of the accord even though, as former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton observes, important provisions are still being negotiated. In the spirit of the times, though, the pact would become the law of the land before those details are finalized, while its authors either don’t know what it says or are lying about it. Administration officials told Arizona Republican Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain — who will be central to the Senate’s ratification debate — that the treaty referred to missile defense only in the hortatory, non-binding preamble. Yet when the senators looked at the treaty’s binding terms, they found, right there in black and white, a provision (Art. V, para. 3) that would require the United States to refrain from placing “defense interceptors” in existing missile launchers — a severe compromise of American national security.

Read the whole thing.

In Quincy, IL, it’s the riot squad vs. your gramma. There must have been a threat we’re not privy to, right? But the photos tell a story of, er, a disproportionate response. Supply your own bingo/peach cobbler jokes.

Too bad more of that strength hasn’t been applied at our borders. Gov. Jan Brewer makes an impregnable case for signing Arizona’s new law: The federal government dropped the ball, and her state’s citizens are being harmed.

Brewer, on whether AZ feels “abandoned” by nat’l leaders on immigration: “Since I’ve been governor since last January, I have written numerous letters to the administration in regards to securing our borders with absolutely no response. So we have been facing this crisis, and it’s devastating the people of Arizona. And I feel as governor I have a responsibility to protect the citizens. We’ve been inundated with criminal activity. It’s been outrageous.”

More Brewer: “And we’re not going to put up with it any longer. And I hope that now we’ve got senate bill 1070 signed and ready to go into law that we’ll get somebody’s attention. But it is the federal government’s responsibility to secure our borders. Our states cannot sustain it.”

Brewer, on Obama calling the bill “misguided”: “He has a right to say whatever he wants to say. But ‘misguided’ — I think he’s wrong. I have a responsibility to the people of Arizona. And I’m sure he’s concerned because of the brouhaha and over-dramatic comments about racial profiling. I made perfectly clear when I signed the bill that we would not tolerate racial profiling. It’s illegal.”

And even before he became president, Obama was a force against, rather than for, securing our borders. Jennifer Rubin quotes Lynn Sweet from 2008:

“When it came time to putting that bill together, he was more of a problem than he was a help. And when it came time to try to get the bill passed, he, in my opinion, broke the agreement we had. He was in the photo op, but he could not execute the hard part of the deal,” Graham said,” Graham said.

J-Ru comments:

So will Broder add Obama to the list of culprits? Well, here’s an easy way for Obama to redeem himself: have the McCain-Kennedy bill reintroduced and fight for its passage. After all, there is a large Democratic majority now. Or does Obama want an issue, and not a bill? We’ll find out whether he’s up to his old tricks — or whether he really is interested in solving the immigration problem, which Arizona and the other states must cope with.

SEIU Executive VP Gerry Hudson lays out a sure-fire plan in this video clip from Naked Emperor News to scare their black membership so they no longer oppose immigration reform. Surely they can’t have the concerns of their own members messing up the opportunity to have a slew of newly legalized immigrants to fill the union coffers. Hudson isn’t really worried about opposition from the black community though, “it doesn’t take a whole lot to argue African-American workers to another place.” Essentially the plan involves telling them pay no attention to these immigrants who might take your jobs look over there at those “f’ing rabid racists.” Nice plan, shows great respect for the African-Americans he represents doesn’t it? Video at the link, language warning applies as you may have already guessed.